Man in Halloween Costume Shot After Trying the Wrong Apartment Door on Bering Drive, Police Say

A man is in critical condition after he was shot while apparently trying to enter the wrong apartment at a complex on Bering Drive in the Galleria area around 2:20 a.m. Thursday, Houston police said, in a case reported by FOX 26 Houston. Police believe the wounded man, who lives at the complex, was returning from a Halloween party, may have been intoxicated, and confused another unit for his own while dressed in a Halloween costume.

Inside the second-floor apartment, a father was asleep on the couch while his girlfriend and their one-year-old child were in the bedroom, FOX 26 reported. He woke to the sound of someone rattling his doorknob, kicking the door frame and insisting the home was his. The resident grabbed his firearm and looked through the peephole. "He's like, 'This is my house.' I'm like, 'This is not your house, bro,' and then he's trying to bum-rush in," the resident, who asked not to be identified, told FOX 26. "After he hit me, he tried to take me down or whatever — and that's when I ended up shooting him," he said.

The resident fired a single shot, striking the other man in the upper torso, and paramedics rushed the wounded man to a local hospital in critical condition, the station reported. Houston Police say the resident stayed on the scene, cooperated with investigators, and no charges have been filed at this time.

FOX 26 legal analyst Chris Tritico said Texas law does not require a resident to stop and evaluate an intruder's intentions in the middle of the night: "At night, when someone's coming into your house, you do not have a duty to wait and decide if it's a mistake or if this is just some drunk guy. You can take action to defend your property and yourself, and that includes deadly force." The shooting comes as Houston heads into Halloween night itself, when costumed visitors at wrong doors are a familiar sight across the city.